RadioShack will begin selling Barnes & Noble Nook e-readers...

RadioShack will begin selling Barnes & Noble Nook e-readers Oct. 3 in 3,000 stores and at radioshack.com, the companies said Wednesday. The agreement includes the 6-inch Nook Simple Touch Reader ($139) and the 7-inch Nook Color ($249), the companies said. RadioShack currently sells $99 and $149 e-readers from Ectaco, $109 and $129 e-readers from Aluratek, and Amazon’s Kindle in-store only ($139), according to its website. Barnes & Noble also said Wednesday that the Federal Trade Commission has granted early termination of the waiting period for Liberty Media’s $204 million investment in the company. Barnes & Noble announced last month that Liberty Media bought preferred stock, convertible into about 12 million shares -- or 16.6 percent of the Barnes & Noble common stock -- for $17 per share, with a dividend rate of 7.75 percent per year to be paid quarterly. Under terms of the investment, Barnes & Noble expanded its board of directors to 11 members to include Gregory Maffei, Liberty Media CEO, and Mark Carleton, senior vice president. Liberty had originally planned to buy out Barnes & Noble for $1 billion. With Barnes & Noble sales having improved in recent months following closing of Borders stores across the country, Liberty and Barnes & Noble believed Liberty investing in the bookstore chain was a better option than buying it, analysts said last month when the $204 million investment was announced (CED Aug 22 p8). Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble has added iOS storybook apps Kung Fu Panda 2, How to Train Your Dragon and The Smurfs to its content library. The apps are available for $2.99 each. The two storybooks include original images and character voices directly from the movie for an “immersive story experience,” according to publisher iStoryTime. The apps are designed for kids two-years and up, and pages can be turned automatically or manually depending on the age and preference of the user, iStoryTime said. According to Kristy Cox, head of worldwide publishing at DreamWorks Animation, the tablet market continues to be “a very important part of ensuring that fans of our movies can enjoy our stories and characters whenever and however they want to.”